Art for your bedroom

The posters on your wall are a map of your
soul, so make sure they count, says Aindrea Emelife

13th October 2015

A Bout de Souffle (Breathless) by Jean-Luc
Godard

For the film buff...

A classic movie poster that's effortlessly cool. I really
struggle to think of a more fascinating and frustrating filmmaker
than Jean-Luc Godard. His first film, A Bout de Souffle
(Breathless), arrived like a clap of thunder in the Sixties
and is considered a major catalyst of the French New Wave movement.
The narrative is a simple retelling of a dangerous love affair, but
the sardonic humour, break from convention and free-wheeling style
make it iconic. The whole thing seems completely unplanned as
conversations turn into rambles, incidents are unexplained and
jump-cuts mid-scene seek to confuse. It's a bit of a mess, but it's
all very purposeful. So hear ye, hear ye: let this serve as a
reminder that things do not have to make sense to be beautiful.

The Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus
Bosch

For the politically
inclined

This is like a debauched medieval conception of the Henley Royal
Regatta gone TERRIBLY wrong, but with more symbols of the comic
ephemerality of human life and ultimate damnation and fewer boys in
blazers called Hugo. Bosch birthed this weird painting, with its
human-eating birds and ears with knives poking out of them, as an
admonition against fleshly and worldly indulgences - all the fun
stuff, really. Sound familiar? Place it above your jewellery
armoire. Because irony is fun.

Pop Art Is: Fountain by Marcel Duchamp

For the art historian

This is a slightly indulgent one for me... If you ever study art
history, you will find yourself talking about Marcel Duchamp's
upside- down urinal/artistic revolution/metaphorical 'f**k you'
more than you might care for. Duchamp bought a urinal from a shop,
flipped it over, scribbled 'R Mutt' on it, called it
Fountain, then... changed the way we think about art
forever. No biggie. This work, and others like it that he called
'ready-mades', basically takes the piss out of art critics and the
art world as a whole. It's absolutely hilarious but also the most
important piece of art of the 20th century.Paste this on the
bathroom door in halls to achieve ultimate smugness.